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Ideol confirms flagship floater will utilise Vestas V80 turbine

Floating wind power technology outfit Ideol has confirmed its flagship unit, now being built in France for the European FloatGen project, will fly a Vestas V80 turbine.

The 2MW floater, currently being built with contractor Bouygues Travaux Publics at its Saint-Nazaire facility, is slated for installation next year in the Atlantic Ocean off Le Croisic,

The FloatGen unit, a square, open-centred design measuring 36 metres x 36 metres x 10.8 metres and with a draft of eight metres, will be the world's first all-concrete model, engineered with an eye on mass production for future wind farms, as well as cutting the cost associated with manufacturing in steel.

"The V80 wind turbine has effectively been delivered at Saint-Nazaire," Ideol chief executive Paul de la Guérivière tells Recharge. "The floating foundation construction is progressing well and, according to our initial planning, the wind turbine will be erected onto the floater in spring 2017."

The flagship unit, which was originally to have flown a 2MW Gamesa machine, will be towed out and moored in around 35 metres of water at SEM-REV, the Ecole Centrale de Nantes' grid-connected ocean-energy demonstration site, 19km off the coast of Brittany.

FloatGen, co-financed by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Innovation, will be the second outing on a floating unit for the V80-2.0 design, which was also flown by the recently decommissioned WindFloat 1 (WF1) demonstrator off Portugal.

Prototype floating wind turbines are installed off Norway, Portugal and Japan, with arrays moving ahead in these regions, and France has announced two of the five winning consoritia in its pilot tender, seen as having the potential to spark a floating offshore build-out of up to 6GW by 2025.

Last June, the Scottish government released a far-reaching study on floating wind power that points to its fast-approaching commercialisation.

Produced by government-industry body the UK Carbon Trust, the report found that floating wind concepts have the potential to cut generated levelised cost of energy (LCoE) to below £100 ($144) per MWh in utility-scale deployments, with Hywind calculated to be on track to reach an LCoE of £85-£95/MWh.

MAKE Consulting estimates that 3.4GW of floating wind power will be switched on by 2030, led by Japan and France.

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Ideol confirms flagship floater will utilise Vestas V80 turbine

Floating wind power technology outfit Ideol has confirmed its flagship unit, now being built in France for the European FloatGen project, will fly a Vestas V80 turbine.

The 2MW floater, currently being built with contractor Bouygues Travaux Publics at its Saint-Nazaire facility, is slated for installation next year in the Atlantic Ocean off Le Croisic,

The FloatGen unit, a square, open-centred design measuring 36 metres x 36 metres x 10.8 metres and with a draft of eight metres, will be the world's first all-concrete model, engineered with an eye on mass production for future wind farms, as well as cutting the cost associated with manufacturing in steel.

"The V80 wind turbine has effectively been delivered at Saint-Nazaire," Ideol chief executive Paul de la Guérivière tells Recharge. "The floating foundation construction is progressing well and, according to our initial planning, the wind turbine will be erected onto the floater in spring 2017."

The flagship unit, which was originally to have flown a 2MW Gamesa machine, will be towed out and moored in around 35 metres of water at SEM-REV, the Ecole Centrale de Nantes' grid-connected ocean-energy demonstration site, 19km off the coast of Brittany.

FloatGen, co-financed by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Innovation, will be the second outing on a floating unit for the V80-2.0 design, which was also flown by the recently decommissioned WindFloat 1 (WF1) demonstrator off Portugal.

Prototype floating wind turbines are installed off Norway, Portugal and Japan, with arrays moving ahead in these regions, and France has announced two of the five winning consoritia in its pilot tender, seen as having the potential to spark a floating offshore build-out of up to 6GW by 2025.

Last June, the Scottish government released a far-reaching study on floating wind power that points to its fast-approaching commercialisation.

Produced by government-industry body the UK Carbon Trust, the report found that floating wind concepts have the potential to cut generated levelised cost of energy (LCoE) to below £100 ($144) per MWh in utility-scale deployments, with Hywind calculated to be on track to reach an LCoE of £85-£95/MWh.

MAKE Consulting estimates that 3.4GW of floating wind power will be switched on by 2030, led by Japan and France.